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Understanding Food with the Bulletproof Diet

In many ways, the Bulletproof Diet is unlike other diets. Designed to burn fat and increase performance levels, the Bulletproof Diet is a realistic approach to eating nutrient-dense fats, key proteins, and tons of organic vegetables.

The Bulletproof Diet Roadmap

Bulletproof Food Detective

Additional Information

By oversimplifying key concepts such as macronutrients (e.g., lipids, proteins, and carbohydrates), anti-nutrients, and the optimal times for eating certain foods, many weight-loss programs generate the narrow, misguided understandings about food that cause their avid followers to feel determined, then deprived, and inevitably, defeated.

The Bulletproof® Diet™ prompts you to think about foods, weight loss, and wellness in very different ways than do most diets.

What is the Bulletproof Diet?

After his weight-loss success of 100 pounds, Dave developed the Bulletproof Diet, which focuses on healthy fats, antioxidant-rich vegetables, and high-quality proteins that satisfy your body at a cellular, metabolic level. In this video, Dave details the important topics that are the most often distorted (or left out altogether) by diets and introduces you the Bulletproofed way of thinking about foods.

If you're not yet familiar with the Bulletproof Diet, start by downloading your free, 1-page PDF of Dave's Bulletproof Diet Roadmap. It's an easily-navigable, information-packed reference that will familiarize you with all areas of the Bulletproof Diet, as well as provide tips on meal timing and fasting protocol.

You don't have to take on the 300+ pages of stories, science, and citations in Dave's book to be successful at the Bulletproof Diet (although it certainly helps if you can). Head to our more bite-sized blog article to read Dave's 14 tips for succeeding on the Bulletproof Diet, as well as 3 common mistakes made on the Bulletproof Diet and how to fix them.

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Step By Step Instructions

Get printable, mobile, or PDF versions of the instructions featured in this video

1) Proteins, Carbs, and Lipids (but Which?)

Macronutrients are any of the nutritional components of the diet that are required in relatively large amounts: proteins, carbohydrates (sugars), and lipids (fats).

Macronutrients are the backbone of sustainable, healthy eating, and the building blocks of life itself. As such, proteins, carbohydrates, and lipids collectively exemplify another area that’s dangerously over-simplified by most diets.

While we may know the importance of macronutrients, what about micronutrients, or the specific types of proteins, carbs., and fats to eat? Sure, maintaining the proper fats-to-proteins-to-carbs balance is essential, as you could guzzle several protein drinks and stomach 5 steaks per day, yet without enough lipids and carbs, you’ll drastically lose muscle and crash. Recall (00:44 of the video) Dave’s analogy of how quantity—like ‘“eat 20-30 g. of protein”—matters, but not without quality: 30 g. of protein can be sourced from a bowl of eggs, or from toxic, lethal spider venom.

Click here to read Dave dispel the popular macronutrient misconceptions floating around and explain what you actually need to know.

2) Eliminating Anti-Nutrients with Bulletproof

As explained by Dave, anti-nutrients are found both commonly and in many, unexpected food sources. Since plants can’t move when threatened, many plants produce natural biochemical toxins to defend themselves against hungry herbivores and/or to compete with neighboring plants by inhibiting their growth.

Many diets do a decent job at removing certain anti-nutrients, like lectins and phytateswhich are found primarily in grains and legumes. The Bulletproof Diet takes anti-nutrients a step further, however, and also removes oxalates and mold toxins. Oxalates, which you can read more about here, are found in raw cruciferous vegetables such as kale, chard, and spinach. Furthermore, the Bulletproof Diet considers cooking as a form of processing—something not many diets do.

Cooking can prompt a lot of toxins to form on your food, overheat and oxidize fats, and even denature key proteins if not done properly. The Bulletproof Diet aims to cook your food in the least toxic ways possible in order to eliminate inflammation, allowing you to get the most from your foods. When it comes to anti-nutrients, the Bulletproof Diet delves deep, telling you which foods contain anti-nutritional factors, explaining how to avoid them, and identifying the exact foods that provide the most energy and contain the least performance-robbing, inflammation-causing anti-nutrients and toxins.

3) Timing Nutrients: When to Eat What

Just as none of the macronutrients are digested in the same way(s), the amount of time it takes to digest and break-down each macronutrient differs.

In fact, of the three macronutrients, lipids and proteins take longest to break-down, whereas carbohydrates are broken down the quickest due to their simple structure. If you eat a large, protein-dense dinner (e.g., steak) at 9 PM, your nervous system will hate your wide-awake digestive system, and you’ll wake up feeling sluggish and sleep-deprived. And while simple carbs. may not keep your digestive system active for very long, they'll cause your blood sugar to fluctuate ride certainly prevent you from the restful sleep you need to be Bulletproof (among other things).

Consequently, Dave recommends eating by 8 PM, or optimally, 2-3 hours before bed. 1-2 tablespoons of raw honey (download the Bulletproof Diet Roadmap for details) can help you restock glycogen stores, inhibit the breakdown of muscle, and assist in muscle recovery. Timing foods is key to giving your body the nutritional reinforcement needed to lose and keep off fat.